In the weeks preceding the 2024 election, Duncan traveled the campaign road to support Harris in an effort to persuade other Republicans against reinstalling President Donald Trump.
Duncan had previously retaliated against Trump. Because Duncan resisted the president’s unfounded allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 Georgia election, he fell out of favor with Trump and other Republican officials while serving as lieutenant governor.
In 2024, Duncan considered running for president as the third-party No Labels candidate, but he finally decided against seeking a second term as lieutenant governor.
Duncan said he hasn’t decided whether to run as a Democrat in the statewide elections next year, but he has talked to people from all political backgrounds who have urged him to do so.
Duncan stated, “I haven’t made any decisions yet, but I will definitely keep taking those calls.”
According to Duncan’s article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his disenchantment with the Republican Party began well before the 2020 election. Duncan writes for the AJC as an opinion columnist.
Credit: AJC/HYOSUB SHIN
Credit: AJC/HYOSUB SHIN
Duncan claimed in a different AJC interview that his ideological development started while he was a member of the Georgia House. He claimed to have seen Republican lawmakers thwart gun control measures in favor of enacting legislation that increases gun access.
He claimed that it simply felt like such a phony solution to the issue of violent crimes with firearms. Republicans are afraid of their own shadow on the gun issue because they thought the NRA would send them a little orange postcard during primary season, which was illogical.
He also mentioned his colleagues’ choice to exclude low-income Georgians without health insurance from Medicaid expansion. Only ten states have chosen not to extend Medicaid coverage, including Georgia.
Duncan claimed that because of what he believes has happened to the Republican Party, he felt compelled to declare his new political affiliation rather than merely altering his voting behavior. Voters in Georgia are exempt from party registration requirements.
He claimed that bad choices keep coming up in a never-ending flood. I’ve reached a point where I don’t want to join the Republican Party.
Seven months have passed since Duncan was officially ejected from the Republican Party at the start of the year by members of the Republican State Executive Committee, who also prohibited him from attending any state GOP events and demanded that he stop identifying as a Republican.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding Duncan’s political future, state senator Josh McLaurin, a Democrat from Sandy Springs and a 2026 contender for lieutenant governor, stated that if Duncan were to run for office again, his history of promoting conservative legislation might erode public confidence.
According to McLaurin, “I think it casts a lot of doubt on the sincerity of what he’s saying if he’s just doing this because he wants to run for governor or some kind of higher office as a Democrat because he’s put his finger up to the wind and decided that this is the only or the best way he can do it.”
Charles Bullock, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, also stated that while Duncan’s backing of Harris in the previous year’s presidential contest is one thing, he would encounter significant opposition from people who are dubious of his qualifications if he were to run for office in a primary contest against other Democrats.
